“You have nothing to deal with.”
“No! Please! Listen!”
Fazil grabbed as much breath as he could. McCracken’s hold had slackened enough for him to peer backward. He looked into Blaine’s eyes and nothing but black looked back; the whites of them appeared to have been swallowed. McCracken’s complexion was ruddy. His beard showed some gray, but Fazil didn’t know if this was part of his disguise or not.
“In my jacket pocket, there’s an envelope,” he continued.
“So?”
“Inside it is something to do with the most crucial element of the holy war.”
“Which has been going on futilely for two thousand years.”
“It is different this time: we have found it.”
“Found what?” Blaine asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
“A gift from Allah — that is what Al-Akir called it. A force that will allow us to destroy our enemies at last. A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.”
Force …
The word stuck in Blaine’s head. Not a weapon.
A force …
He spun Fazil around and slammed him against the building. The terrorist’s one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame was like a playtoy in McCracken’s hands. He was still pleading when Blaine yanked the envelope from his pocket.
“Take it. Just let me live.”
“I could take it and still kill you.”
“But you won’t. I know how you work.”
“You were to give this to Al-Akir.”
“I was holding it for him. It tells where he was to go next.”
“Better place than where he is now, I’d wager.”
“Let me go. I’ll run. I’ll disappear.”
McCracken was still holding him. “Good idea, because I’m going to put word of our little meeting out. Only I think I’ll make it known that you were the one who gave Al-Akir up. His friends will want you dead, Fazil. Matter of fact, I’d say the next time you lay eyes on any of them, it’ll be the last thing you’ll see.”
Blaine hoisted him from the wall and tossed him effortlessly to the pavement.
“Get out of my sight, Fazil.”
The terrorist scampered down the alley, looking back until he was halfway to the street. McCracken checked the envelope for explosives and then opened it cautiously. Inside was what appeared to be a jagged piece of ancient parchment, the Arabic symbols too faded to be read. Along with this was a business card for an antique store in San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.
A force that makes whoever holds it invincible.
Whatever that might mean, it was what Al-Akir had been pursuing, and thus what McCracken would now pursue in his place.
Starting in San Francisco.
Chapter 2
“It might help, Sayin Winchester, if you told me exactly what we are looking for.”
Alan Winchester redoubled his handkerchief and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. “We’ll know if we find it,” he told Kamir, the Turkish work foreman who had been with him through the entire four-month duration of this dig.
Winchester’s was one of seven teams that Professor Benson Hazelhurst had dispatched throughout the Middle East. Each had one of seven different maps that all reportedly led to the same destination. Besides his team, two were operating in Israel, two in Egypt, and one each in Iraq and Syria. Only one map, of course, could lead to the find, if in fact the find existed. More likely, in Winchester’s mind, this entire business was a hoax that the brilliant Hazelhurst had fallen for in his old age.
Winchester’s map had brought him to Ephesus, one of the world’s richest sites for unearthing archaeological treasures. Located on the Aegean coast in southwestern Turkey, the rolling, fertile plains and hills of Ephesus had previously yielded such finds as the Citadel and Basilica of St. John, the Library of Celsus, and the purported final resting place of the Virgin Mary. It had always been rich in the tradition of religious mysticism.
But the site Winchester’s map had directed him to was located in the middle of the area’s arid bushy lowlands, miles from any other reported find. Upon arriving, he had arranged, through the foreman Kamir, for aerial photography of the general area to pin down the specific find. The plane flew over the area several times at both dawn and dusk, when the shadows were longest, searching for indications of disturbed earth that would reveal signs of an earlier excavation. The results, though not conclusive, had proven indicative enough to give Winchester at least a starting point.
If he himself had believed in what they were seeking, Winchester might have confided in Kamir, whom he had come to trust during their four months of fruitless searching. Benson Hazelhurst might be the foremost archaeologist alive today, but this time the old man seemed way off base. Winchester’s team had now dug down twenty feet in a roughly thirty-foot-square area without unearthing a single thing. Each time Hazelhurst visited the site, his only instructions were to keep going. These instructions belied the fact that twenty feet meant upward of three thousand years of layered history. With no firm indications of earlier civilizations and nothing discovered down to this depth, there seemed little point in continuing. But Hazelhurst insisted that this was exactly what he had expected.
Not that it mattered to Winchester. The mere thought that this find could exist was extremely unnerving to him. Better off if—
“Bir sey bulduk! Bir sey bulduk!”
The excited shout came from down in the rectangular pit that had so far yielded nothing. Winchester got up from beneath his shaded lean-to and met Kamir at the rim.
“Iste! Cabuk!” one of the workmen shouted up at them. “Sanlrlm, aradiglmlzl bulduk! Cabuk!”
“He says that—”
“He found something that meets the description,” Winchester completed for his foreman, who was already lowering himself into the excavation. Keeping his excitement and uneasiness down, he began to descend the rope ladder after Kamir.
“Cabuk! Cabuk!” the workman was shouting excitedly from the center of the excavation, urging him to hurry up.
When he dropped off the rope ladder, Winchester could see that the man’s face was encrusted with chalk-white dust and yellowed dirt. But his eyes were alive with excitement as he tapped his shovel against the object of his enthusiasm.
ping … ping … ping …
Whatever lay beneath it was hard and thick — at least eight feet in length, Winchester calculated. He moved quickly in Kamir’s wake and joined the foreman on his knees over what had been unearthed. Winchester withdrew what looked like a whisk broom from his pocket and began clearing away debris from the object’s top. Barely a minute’s labor revealed an eight-by-six-foot slab of stone, its surface like none Winchester had ever felt before. Neat impressions and carvings were chiseled into it, slowly gaining shape as the archaeologist brushed the dust and debris clear of them. He could make out drawings now as well, but the language was utterly unfamiliar to him.
One of the workmen was gazing over his shoulder, trying to read along. As Winchester swept away the last of the dirt, exposing the outlines of the largest recessed figures, the man gasped and shrank back.
“O ne?” Winchester asked him in Turkish. “Ne goruyorsun? … “What do you see?”
“Hayir! Olamaz!”
“What can’t be?” Winchester demanded. He swung toward Kamir. “Ask him what’s wrong! Ask him what he saw!”
Kamir translated the questions. The workman shook his head determinedly, needed more prodding before he spoke quickly in a panicked tone.